Holmes & Watson

Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly team up for the fourth time to play
Sherlock and his sidekick in a madcap, nonsensical shambles.

Dumb and dumber: John C. Reilly uses a karate chop and Will Ferrell a cricket bat to best a mosquito

The main joke in this Origins Comedy is that the
quintessentially English sleuth is played by an American. The other big gag, in
the tradition of Inspector Clouseau and Johnny English, is that he’s a complete
idiot. So, as Peter Sellers took the Michel out of the French in The Pink Panther films, so Will Ferrell
adopts a jokey English accent, with John C. Reilly, as Dr Watson, following
suit. Bizarrely, the London-born Rebecca Hall plays an American, Grace Hart, who
immediately falls for the inexplicable charms of Watson. Of course, nothing
makes sense in this frenetic, extended sketch in which historical figures are
introduced just for the hell of it. Historians will blanch. A genuine English
woman, Pam Ferris, plays a suitably forbidding Queen Victoria, with whom Watson
immediately falls in lust. But she could not have boarded the Titanic, as it
wasn’t even commissioned until seven years after her death. But one makes
allowances for comedy, even the amalgamation of such characters as a lusty Mark
Twain, Albert Einstein and Harry Houdini, all of whom share the same bed
chamber, the Artful Dodger and an aged Mahatma Gandhi. When all else fails, the
conscientious critic looks elsewhere to summon praise. I was admiring the
production design, when I became perplexed by the leaves cloaking the pavements
of Baker Street, swirling around the lampposts. I just wondered where they came
from.

The story, the axle on which the comedy rotates, concerns
Watson’s desire to become an equal to his learned friend, although he’s largely
treated as a sacrificial lamb and all-round punch bag. The other narrative
strand follows Sherlock’s quest to locate the criminal mastermind Professor
Moriarty (Ralph Fiennes), before the latter makes good on his promise to
assassinate the Queen. Complications ensue.

The dialogue, crafted by the film’s director Etan Cohen, is
at pains to recreate the argot of the time, which more could have been made of.
But even this is relinquished in the name of the film’s misogynistic humour, so
that when the loyal Mrs Hudson (Kelly Macdonald) is unveiled as a nymphomaniac,
Watson barks: “No wonder my room always smells of fish pie and semen!” However,
we do learn a few new things about Sherlock: he had a speech impediment, he was
a horrible kisser and was stupid enough to attack a mosquito with a cricket
bat.

One does wonder how the romp managed to attract a cast of
the calibre of Rebecca Hall, Rob Brydon, Steve Coogan, Ralph Fiennes, Kelly
Macdonald and Hugh Laurie. The answer may lie with the film’s producer, Adam
McKay, the creative partner of Ferrell, who has since gone on to direct the award-winning
The Big Short (2015) and Vice (2018). However, Etan Cohen’s last
directorial effort, Get Hard, was met
with critical derision, albeit not on quite the same scale as Holmes & Watson, which initially
received an approval rating of 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. For the biography of a
man dedicated to logic, albeit a rip-roaring farce, it is a shame that the
first thing to fly out the window is any sense of logic. Notwithstanding,
having seen the film at a well-attended public matinee, I did hear one patron
laugh once.